A Wilf, A Wife and a Worry
by LimpytheLimpet
Summary: "Wilf stared in horror. His lifelong companion lay dead on the ground, a bloody sword in her side. The sword had a silver A engraved on the hilt. The Ask. The invaders. The despotic tyrants."  When Wilf's soulmate is killed, he has to get revenge...
1. Maelstroms and Murders

**Hey! Aloha! Bonjour! Suck my Meerkat!**

**This fanfic has been floating around my head for a while now. It started as a oneshot… but it was slowly mutated and experimented on 'till it became a sort of a semi-story- not quite the length of a full book, but still has a few chapters. As Wilf is obviously the best Chaos Walking character, (Although Manchee is a close second- Watch out for my 'Ressurecshun' ff coming soon. As the name suggests, someone is ressurected…) I really wanted a fanfic to focus on him instead of Todd or Viola. Also, I wanted to see what he would be like if he got angry…**

**Note: although the books themselves were written in the present tense, this is told from the third person, so it doesn't suit. Instead I've used past tense because, well, future tense would be a bit odd. And as for conditional tense… that would just be jibberish.**

**Hope you enjoy it. I've got an alternative ending thingy planned and I'll write it if there's demand.**

**R&R! Please and thank you!**

**CHAPTER 1: MAELSTROMS AND MURDERS**

Wilf stared in horror. His Noise, usually calm and controlled, was a maelstrom of greys and blacks. Sadness. Despair. But there was a speck of red in the broth. Anger. Hate. A thirst for vengeance. And this red drop in the raging ocean of greys was growing. His sadness was being replaced with anger.

Wilf stared in horror. His lifelong companion lay dead on the ground, a bloody sword in her side. The sword had a silver _A_ engraved on the hilt. The Ask. The invaders. The despotic tyrants. Wilf wept and sobbed, wailed and moaned, for at least an hour, until his sadness had gone. He had let it escape. But, although the sadness and depression had gone, the anger was still bottled up inside him. He knew who had done the crime. He had already despised them, but now he was filled with fury, in a blind rage.

He moped over to his cart. He took his old, trusty axe out. For his whole life, whenever he was angry, he would chop wood. Let all of his anger out on the wood. It was one of the reasons his noise was so controlled- he had always let his emotions out. The axe felt heavy and clumsy in Wilf's strong hands. He swung it at a small fir at the edge of the path. It felt good.

Wilf continued enthusiasticaly whacking trees with his axe, but his anger didn't dissipate. In fact, it became almost all he could think about. Wilf pondered over his love's killers as his axe carved a deep slice out of a huge oak. The tree almost fell over. Wilf knew that his wrath wouldn't go. Unless…. Wilf slowly heaved the bulky axe onto his shoulder, and started walking. Towards the city- New Prentisstown. Towards the Ask. And he wasn't in a good mood.


	2. Decapitations and Detainments

**CHAPTER 2: DECAPITATIONS AND DETAINMENTS**

Wilf passed two Officers of the Ask on the road. They made fun of him as he walked passed. They mocked the way he 'thundered down the road as if his life depended on it'. They mocked the way he didn't have the cure. They mocked the way he 'didn't have a bitch thundering along with him'. Wilf couldn't help himself. He swung the axe. One of the soldiers almost got decapitated. Almost. The axe had cut clean through the bones of his neck, and all that was left connecting his head to his shoulders was a thread of bloody skin. The semi-beheaded man fell to the now blood-covered ground and was silent. His horrified companion drew his sword.

Wilf's heavy axe made mincemeat of the man. But Wilf's hunger for revenge was still very much alive. He continued his journey to New Prentisstown. Except he took the dead man's sword with him.

Wilf entered the city after slicing and dicing another four soldiers with the hated silver _A _on their shoulders. The sword dripped scarlet blood onto the paved road. People ran away. He liked the power. He marched down the road, on his way to the citadel. The President had better watch out. Wilf was coming.

As he strolled almost casually through the streets, windows on either side were filled with faces, their noses squashed against the glass. One face he recognised. The face recognised him too and came running out of the shop it had been in.

"Wife! What are yoo doin' here? Yoo should be back at camp. It's not safe to stroll these streets when yoo're part of-"

"Shut up! What in the name of the New World are you doing here, Wilf?" Jane noticed the bloody sword in Wilf's hand. Wilf saw her gaze at it and started to explain.

"Them effin' Ask! They killed mah poor donkey! Ah was angry. Ah wanted _revenge_!" Wilf cried. Except he didn't say effing. Jane stared at the blade in Wilf's hands, stared at her husband's crazed face. She started running.

Wilf started following, but was stopped. A score of soldiers emerged from various hiding places- alleyways, door-fronts, roofs. The silver _A_'s on their uniforms glinted in the midday sun. Their weapons were held high, a mixture of rifles, swords, spears and pistols. All of them were pointed at the muscular farmer with the scarlet sword.

"Wife! Jane!" Wilf cried. She stopped, surprised- he never called her by her first name. "Help me!" he yelled, terrified. She turned around and saw the Ask soldiers surrounding Wilf. Her feet were rooted to the ground. Some of the soldiers came to retrieve her. They weren't in a good mood.


	3. Askings and Answers

**CHAPTER 3: ASKINGS AND ANSWERS**

"So, I believe your name is Wilf?"

President Prentiss smiled menacingly down at Wilf. Wilf's hands and feet were tied to a sturdy wooden chair. He couldn't remember being knocked out, but had come to a couple of minutes earlier, in a dark room, tied to the seat. There wasn't much in the room- a door, a chair, a Wilf. A curtain covered the upper half of one of the walls, which Wilf guessed was a window. Some sort of speaker, maybe an intercom, was attached to the wall next to the curtain. When Wilf had finished looking around, the President had strolled in, almost leisurely. He seemed very calm, but Wilf couldn't be sure, as he had obviously taken the cure so you couldn't read his true thoughts.

"Well, Mister Wilf, I have reasons to believe that you are part of the Answer. Am I correct in saying this?"

Wilf tried lying, but his Noise had already voiced the fact that he was lying when he said "No."

"Wilf… there is not much point in lying. It doesn't get anyone anywhere. The sooner you start telling me the truth, the sooner we can both go home."

He seemed to genuinely want to release him, but Wilf had heard of the President's tricks. His Noise told him exactly in what part of the human anatomy he could shove his lies about going home, and the President smiled grimly in response.

"Perhaps you will be more… persuasive, when I show you this." He drew back the curtain, showing Wilf the infamous Asking room. The torture chamber. Wilf's brain had too many things to process at once. Firstly, if that was the Asking room, it meant that he was in the dreaded Office of the Ask. Secondly, it told him that the President was just as mean and malicious as everyone said, and thirdly, it told him that Jane was in trouble.

"Wife!" Wilf yelled, but the President's hand silenced him.

"That room is sound-proofed, my dear Wilf, and to speak to somebody in that room, you have to press this button." President Prentiss pressed a button on the intercom and said clearly, "Testing, testing, one, two, three, trolls cause terrible trouble in a tantrum." A scowling man who Wilf guessed was Sergeant Hammar looked confusedly at the window.

"Also, Wilfykins, your beloved wife is strapped to that contraption. Those things on either side of her head play a continuous whine into her ears, drowning out all noise, and Noise, for our sweet Jane."

Wilf was terrified for Jane. Indeed she was deaf to even the loudest man, but also, the contraption scared Wilf. A large vat of water sat in front of his wife, and the machine looked as if it was able to tilt…

"I'll do any-thang yoo want if yoo don't hurt mah Wife!"

"Too late."

The Presidents malevolent sneer seemed to fill the room as he pressed the button on the intercom.

"Mr. Hammer? Could you please be so kind as to lower our guest into the water? She seems to be a little bit thirsty."

"Nooo!" Wilf struggled with the bindings on his wrists, but couldn't avert his eyes from the scene through the window. Jane's entire body was tipped forward into the vat, and Wilf had to watch her thrash and splash in the water, unable to breath, drowning, dying-

Jane was pulled out of the water again.

"Now what was it you were telling me about the Answer, Wilf?"


	4. Prisons and Plans

**CHAPTER 4: PRISONS AND PLANS**

"Wilf! Hey, Wilf! Over here!"

Wilf sat glumly in his cell, turning over a cheap prison-issue tin cup in his well-worn hands. He was surprised by the voice. The youth in the cell across the corridor was waving at him, trying to get his attention without waking the guard sleeping at the end of the hall. Wilf got up from the ground and walked over to the steriotypical steel bars that fronted all of the cells.

"What yoo want?"

The man looked up and down the corridor to make sure nobody was there and then replied quietly.

"Hey, look, we both need to get out of here, am I right?" Wilf nodded sadly.

"Who are yoo?"

"The name's Patrick... Well, tonight, we're, um," he checked the corridor again. "Well, we were planning on getting out of here…" Wilf was confused by something the boy had said…

"What do yoo mean 'we'?"

"The Answer, duh. You're part of the Answer, right?"

"Yeah. But yoo said we. Who else?"

"Well, there's me an you, and then there's Paul down the corridor. There's also this odd lass on Looney Lane. That's what we call the wing where all the crazies are. She's… well, she's not exactly right in the head. Her name's Megan. She's lost a few memories after being knocked on her head a coupla times, and one of those memories is her last name. She's now decided she likes Presley. Don't ask her about it or she'll go a bit looney on ye, right?"

Wilf was a bit bewildered by it all. He smiled shakily and nodded back to the man, Paul, who had been staring insistantly, waiting on an answer.

"Then there's also Sarah in-"

"Oi! Waddya think yer doin' there boy?"

The burly guard thundered down the narrow corridor, his clumsy movements followed by the depressed eyes of the inmates on either side. He stopped outside Patrick's cell and stared angrily at the youth inside.

"Ya've bin 'ere long enuf ta know there's no talkin' allowed!" To emphasise his point he banged the butt of his rifle against the bars of Patrick's cell. Unfortunately, it went through the bars and was grabbed by the strong hands inside. After a brief struggle the guard shook the hands off. He pulled the gun back out and aimed it at Patrick..

"Looks like someone wants ta go on a trip ta the hole!" The guard grinned viciously and unlocked the cell door with the key around his neck. He marched Patrick at gunpoint down the hall.

"It won't happen tonight! We'll talk tomorrow!" Patrick shouted to the whole hallway before he was shoved on.

Wilf sat down again on the cold floor and sobbed his way to sleep, muttering the odd "bloody Prentiss," and "poor Wife," much to the amusement of his fellow prisoners.


	5. Rice and Rebellions

**CHAPTER 5: RICE AND REBELLIONS**

Wilf stood in the excersise yard, surrounded by cell blocks three stories high, eating his meagre lunch of rice and carrots. Lee, unperturbed by his night in the hole, was gathering the people who were planning on escaping. Their highly detailed plan must have been picked up on by the guards because all of a sudden there were twice as many men with guns lining the rooftops.

Patrick motioned for Wilf to come over. He obeyed with much sighing and muttering. His bad back was acting up.

"They heard about our escape in a man's Noise. He was executed at dawn. Poor fellow. Was only executed 'cause he didn't give anyone away. We'll remember him." To emphasise this, he and a couple of others put their hands over their hearts and stared into the sky. The soldiers guarding noticed the gesture and cocked their rifles.

"'Ope yer not plannin' any-'un boyo. Remember last night?" The 'boyo' shuddered involuntarily.

"What's that about then?" Wilf tried to prod Patrick's Noise but his efforts were in vain.

"Let's just say the guards not a ladies' man. And he, um, wanted some action. Anywho, back to our escape-"

"Hold on a minute here. My Wife is locked up somewhere here and I ain't going nowhere without her. Yoo can't drag me with yoo." To elaborate, Wilf folded his arms, spread his feet and planted himself firmly on the spot.

"Eh… Wilf… I've been meanin' to tell ye…" Patrick shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, constantly wringing his hands. "Um… your wife was executed. They pay the executioner by the hour and they wanted to get all their value for money… I'm sorry…"

oOo

Wilf hated the Ask more than ever. He could have wrung each and every one of their necks. His Noise was raging once again. Greys, blacks, reds- even the guards were afraid to approach his cell. Well, most of them. The one ironically nick-named 'the player', or 'the ladies' man', still boldly walked up, banged against the bars and told him to shut up. This angered Wilf even more.

oOo

The women hiding in the bushes around the building were nervous. This was to be their biggest attack yet. Breaking into a wing of the Office of the Ask itself. Their hearts pumped as loud and strong as a soldier pumping a shotgun. Their thoughts bounced around their heads like hyper kangaroos on pogo-sticks. This was their moment. Their time to shine. Or die.

Hearing Wilf's Noise was the last straw. The order came to get ready. The women gathered their things- bombs, guns and axes. Utensils of pain. Of death.

The signal came. A loud horn was blown and scores of women in white robes emerged from the bushes, a weapon in their hands, a bomb on their back. They charged at the grey building before them, blowing an entrance and running in. They had infiltrated the dreaded building. The Prison of the Ask.


End file.
